My surprise when I read this book

Surprised by Motherhood by Lisa-Jo Baker

It's rare that I take time to read a book for pleasure.  Most titles satiate my need to learn more about God.  But there was a title that was calling "rest" and I decided to pack into my stack for my week away in the mountains.  I was off to see my daughter and her budding young family who live in Colorado.  My escape always brings rest in more ways than one, trips away brings much needed relaxation.

The book, "Surprised by Motherhood" by Lisa-JoBaker was neatly packed with my clean clothes.  A few pages in, I was hooked.  It’s a beautiful telling of how God has grown her into the mother that she is today from the absence of her own mother’s influence.  Her mother died when she was a young teen growing up in South Africa in a missionary pastor’s family.  God’s beauty surprised from her personal pain, to become the mom she'd always dreamed of having.

Due to her mom’s death, she had to mother herself through those hard, awkward teen years.  She graduated with no desire to ever mother.  Her father encouraged her and did what he could, but as all loving dads dot on their daughters, they can only do so much.  There was a deep pain that never healed until she had her own children. 

According to the culture God had called her parents to, her family lived with abandonment and broken family units around her.  In South Africa, it's common for a dad to leave a family to take up a new wife.  It's common for kids to be abandoned in the pursuit of a new marriage.  The string of orphaned children is endless due to divorce, disease and is heart breaking.  Abject poverty abounds in Africa with children raising children to live on the streets.  They grow up to be become the least, the lost and the last.  It's the harsh real picture of some families in Africa.

Lisa’s surprised me with some memories of my own mother.  She surprised me with how God can make our own needs a teacher.  When she didn't have an example of a mother to learn from, she learned to nurture from the best teacher…in being a mother. 

Life taught her how to mother when she couldn't remember what it looked like. 

It was in her very transparent vignettes of nurturing her own that I connected.  My heart linked with her honest telling of her cares, worries, concerns and angst over the years that strung her heart-rendering memories together with mine.  Many times I have felt disconnected from my own mom specifically when my mind drifts back to my first day of kindergarten. 

I was standing outside the door of my classroom and she left me in a puddle of tears.  I was such a momma's girl.  She walked away down the long hallway, which seemed like miles long, never looking back.  At five my heart broke with the pain of being separated from her.  My little palms were washed by my tears as the teacher pulled me into the room.  I was a bundle of emotions and still to this day tears well up thinking of that lost and alone feeling. 

Those same tears welled up again as I read how Lisa's mom walked out of her life and into the halls of Heaven due to the illness that had struck her life.  Abandonment is a lonely feeling.  Today I know that my mom's heart was also breaking as she walked away that first day.  "I was so heart-broken too.  It was all I could do was to walk away, I knew it was the best for you.”  In that long walk, my mom gave me the chance to grow. 

I sense that what we all feel that pain in many ways when we mother.  The pains of childbirth are soon forgotten once we hold our own in our arms.  We forget the years of doing the best for them out of love for them.  We forget the pains to deliver them into life being the best teacher.  Don’t we all secretly pray to be like our mom’s when we grow up? 

We forget.  But love memories can surprise us.

God further reminded me of the gift I received this past mother's day in some heartfelt words from my own daughter, now mother of two little beauties herself.  She wrote..."Thank you mom for giving me room to grow as a mom."  She thanked me for giving her space to become the mother she needed to be and who God is becoming her to be.

We moms simply love, mother, and nurture those in our care close and from a distance.  Each day brings new surprises along with the sunrise.  It’s mothering at its best and God’s best way to nurture us as moms. 

I highly recommend a look back into Lisa-Jo's story to find the love you need to give to the most.

Lisa-Jo Baker – “Surprised by Motherhood – Everything I never expected about being a mom.” Copyright 2014

Journal Journeys

One of my first journals was dated Jan. 4, and since then I have resolved myself to writing things down.  

My desire to write actually started way back when my dream was very small.  Whoever gave this gift, must have known.  God must have whispered my dream to them.  

The name of my first journal was 

"Multi-Volume Dissertation on Everything"  -Deluxe Edition.  My first entry....

"The best place to begin is the beginning. I've always wanted to write a book.  I always knew that I had the potential.  Now here is my chance.  Even though it may not get published, I'll have the satisfaction within myself that I did it!  Here is a collection of anything and everything that is a part of me!"

On the first page:  Things that are important to me and God.  God thank you for planting the desires of words in my heart.

Since that day I have recorded many thoughts, many things that are important to me. Tears and fears that help stretch and shape my faith.  Thoughts that are important to God.  Among the silly little girl stories there are the heart cries of young tender heart.  All important, each and every one of them.  

Since that first edition, I have recorded my prayers, my partially finished posts, my reflections, and my imagination and interpretations.  My heart is written on each page.  

God has put His footprint on each page.

There are some big mile-markers

...some doubt stones rolled away,

some fear filled walls that have crumbled down,

some hope bridges that span life's rushing tears,

some intriguing turns beyond the gates of praise,

some unforeseen twists and Promises,

many, many prayers, spoken and not,

some life plans and dreams wrapped around a lot of plan B's...

There are emotions roaring on pages mixed with joy, love and faithfulness.  Mixed with good God stuff, those prayers circled, in and around, day after day.  

Important faith stuff to me and God.

I take a journal with me wherever I go.  Just in case I need to capture one more thought or idea.  Post-it's, small notebooks, spirals, leathers, cloth-bound work to capture many ideas too.  They are all covered in prayer and my prayers cover the pages.

I prefer my pages to be more about Him.  Most days my pen makes the pages crinkle under my fingertips.  It's a delight to run my hands across the Truth.  It's life giving and life changing, recording God's promises and faithfulness.  Each page boasts of spiritual growth and my faith in action, it speaks of hope that God gives.  

God has filled these pages...with His truth and important stuff.  

So when I see yet-to-be-filled pages, prayers for needed new growth fill my heart, no matter how God's lessons come.   He prepares the fertile ground for the God harvest ahead.  This bride is looking to the One And Only Lover of her soul to inspire and remember inspired words to scribe.  

There are days when there is no doing, only being.  Silently taking it all in.  Giving thanks and making prayer circles.  There is no editing.  I challenge you to take up a pen and paper and boldly ask God what he would want to say to you today.   

God wants to share His heart.  

That's why I scribble....
His holy and divinely imprinted Footprint. 
He has time set aside for you. 

As One Approved

In case you missed it, Carder and I interviewed Sr. Pastor Craig Groeschel from LifeChurch.tv about his new book Altar Ego.  We spent some time with him and you can listen to the entire interview here.  Enjoy!

If you want to watch the entire message series about who Christ says we are then you are almost in the right place....Watch this!

Come back often as we will be posting interviews and other stuff from the new morning show on The House FM.

More goodness to come...

I would love to know your thoughts about this subject.

P. S. I love my church!

God Caught Me Red-Handed!

I am a writer.  There I said it once again out loud.  I love words and I can sit down and blog about a verse or a thought from my devotional or a lyric in a song.  In fact, I am always thinking ahead for the next potential post.  And I want to write a book.  So when I told you  once about my dream, I thought it would automatically become a reality.  I was hoping so.

It hasn't.  Not yet.

The other day, God caught me red-handed, and asked..."Why haven't you started?"  It was a moment I didn't have any words.  I had no response.  I only had excuses.  

You see...writing is a passion of mine.  It's something I have spent some time in prayer over for God to develop, asking if it was His will for me.  I don't need to wait for Him to say yes again or give me a go ahead and erect a neon sign on my heart.  He already confirmed that years ago.   I know I am supposed to share my thoughts with you.  But this book deal, well that's a whole not-so-new-very-scary-idea.  I really getting bogged down thinking I can't do it.  

What I don't believe is that anyone would want to read the finished product other than my mom.  Some of you said you would be first in line.  I have a hard time believing that.  I don't want to be that American Idol contestant who thinks they are are a good enough writer, and then I get my one chance to impress Mr. Simon Cowell, who after writing my best story, tells me "Who told you that you could write?"  Um...that would crush me.  So when you tell me that you would wait in line to buy something that would someday be my story, I can't believe it.  I don't believe I have anything to share with you.  I have never been so afraid of an adventure in my life.  I fear your gaze, your opinion, your approval.  Your stamp of affection on my life.  I really struggle with the end.  The results.  The how is this-writing-my-own-uninteresting-story is going to turn out?  

You see...I have a lot of excuses.  

I love it when a quote comes together or when you comment to say that I have weaved your heart into the heart of Jesus by sharing something that is on mine.  I love that.  I love the encouragement that comes from you sharing how my struggles and success have touched you.  One time, Misty, said she stopped reading a post I had written because she felt the presence of God.  Wow...that's powerful.  I didn't have anything to do with that except write few words on a blank screen.  Thank you Misty for sharing your experience while reading.

Any words that are effectively pieced together, when put forth with prayer, have the power to change perspective.  And especially when you add the power of One behind each post.  These are processes that I can't disturb.  There is an ancient Chinese proverb, “Those who say it cannot be done should not disturb those who are doing it.”

Wow. This somehow gives me encouragement.

But it also convicts me and causes me to think I have been a naysayer of my own dreams.  I have been making excuses as to not move forward in making my dream happen.  So when God posed that question I had to stop and think, "Do I not think it's possible to do what He has asked me to do?"  "Do I not think I can do what He has gifted me to do?"

I am embarrassed at my answer.

God is not asking me to quit my day job, or to spend less time with family.  He is not asking me to lie to you and say that everything in my life is completely perfect and rosy.  He isn't asking that I grab a pink bow and stick it on top of a nicely wrapped word package.  God is only asking me to share my story with you.  So when I don't make time to sit down and put thought to what He has done in my life up to this point, I am saying no to God.  I am being a naysayer to my dreams.  I am being a naysayer to what God has asked of me.  I am not believing that He will make something beautiful from the finished product.  I am not believing he is calling me to do this.  I am not believing that God will is to do this.  I am giving God a list of invalid excuses instead.   Ouch!

So I must lay down my own arsenal of excuses and just write.  I am tired of putting excuses before my obedience to what God is asking.  I am tired of being a doubter of what God says.  I am tired of poisoning my own dream with the voice of the enemy.  

I am ready to be a doer.  I am ready to write.  I don't know how this will turn out.

It's true that we all have a secret wish to do something meaningful in our lives.  We all have the unspoken desires to impact another, to pass on a legacy that won't soon be forgotten.  It's true that we want to be remembered after we are long gone from this earth.  And in those unspoken hopes, we want to accomplish our dreams.  We want them to come true.  We want them but we don't do anything to accomplish them.  We get stuck in the wanting, not the doing.  

For me, it's fear that keeps me stuck.  It's past failures that keep me from trying.  And trying again.  I get into a rut, a habit, in those familiar place of excuses.  And then I get comfortable, and then I start decorating my halls with lies and spouts of doubt.  And then God asks me "What are you still doing here?  Why haven't you used the gift in which I have given you?"  Why have you buried the treasure I so long to share with others?  Why must I keep waiting for your obedience?"

Have you ever been caught red-handed in a mess of excuses?  What keeps you stuck?

I am ready to be a doer of what I believe.

Five Minute Friday - Change

I write about change a lot because I have the desire to.  I feel like I need a lot of it.  I tend to constantly evaluate everything.  My goal is to I want to honor God with my words, deeds and thoughts.  It's the least I can do in my response to His grace that has been given to me.


So where do I need to change?  Well maybe you should tell me.  I tend to be too hard on myself actually.  I have a friend who says "Don't change".  But I don't want to stay where I am...I want to be a better person, I want to lose another 30 lbs., I want to know God more, I want to serve more, I want to write a book, I want to run a half-marathon, I want to go back to Africa!   Their has to be changes to make all this happen.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever‑increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. ~ 2 Corinthians 3:11

God likes to change too.  This verse reminds me that He is in indeed changing me....from one phase of me to another.  He wants more for me, in His holy transformation, to become like Jesus.  There has to be some "me" changes to make that ever increasing glory change happen.  Those changes are hard.  There are times when change feels like you have an open wound that won't heal.  God comes along and uses His rough sanding stone of change to make the painful wound a little more clean.  That refining process is for His glory as He does His work in me.  The results?  His ever-increasing glory...and that makes change worth it.  


So what do you want to change?  How are you letting God change you?